Teaching Moments
by Silicon2123
Summary: Short stories! Each is prompted by a university subject.
1. Visual Arts

Visual Arts.

If Angela could be anywhere else it would be outside. The bone room is hot with the summer sweat of too many anxious bodies. It's unclear exactly what time it is because the tall intern whose name is escaping her slogging mind blocks the analog clock with his stupid curly hair.

She checks her wrist but it's bare – the silver watch is lying carefully on her desk where she left it before bringing a face to life with wet, heavy clay. The Angelatron isn't in the mood to work and the Angelaperson thinks to herself, "same."

A bone is passed over her from one eager hand to another and she droops between them. There's an indefinite mass of bones and bodies writhing around her, doing what they do best. Someone tries to pass remnants of a hand by her bicep and when the pressure lingers, she realizes it's actually Brennan, grabbing onto her arm amidst the craziness of too many proverbial cooks.

"Angela – thank you."

And Angela remembers why the bone soup accumulated to begin with. They had a face – she made the face – and the final points of the case were falling into place. And coming back into her body, she shifted, looked around, and smiled.

"It's my job."

Brennan gives her a small grin and swishes by, creating a gust of wind for which Angela is grateful. Feeling much more herself, she parts the interns and leaves the room. It's six o'clock. In the evening, she makes sure. She stops by her office, grabs her purse, grabs her paints, and makes for fresher air and the night sky.


	2. Literature

Literature.

She stopped writing for too long and now Bones forgets that she is an author. Work took over like never before, and she doesn't remember how she used to balance literature with crime solving.

That's just it. She glances up from the papers on her desk at which she had been staring intently and taking in not a single word. Her gaze falls on a framed photograph of her lab in the newspaper. Hodgins of all people had clipped the article and preserved it behind glass for her. It was one of their first solvings of an active murder investigation. She inspects all of their faces for youth and finds it in strange places. Hodgins's hair is longer – he cared less about his appearance. Angela's bangs reminded her of a different person who drank more and drew more and did more strangers in bathrooms, high on life. Booth was there. His hair was cropped closer and his belt buckle was ridiculous. It was just a speck in the grainy image but she remembered it well. And she also remembered Angela's elbow to her gut and the whisper under the breath, "honey, stop staring at his crotch." There were weak protests that fell on smiling ears. Cam isn't in the picture, it was that long ago. And Zack was.

And then there's Dr. Brennan in a bright blue coat, not quite smiling but enjoying the moment of recognition and camaraderie. Dr. Brennan in her faded blue coat rises from her desk chair, paces to the wall and looks more closely at the picture. It was taken not long after her second book came out. The third was still in the works. Or it would be if she were working on it. Currently, it was in the sits in a file on her computer, and Bones was afraid to look at the date last edited.

Ever since she started active crime solving, since she learned to hold a gun and since she learned to shoot it, the writing had fallen by the wayside. Everything took more time, everything was more urgent. And even in her moments of rest, she knew crimes were being committed. So how could she write?

It used to be that Brennan wrote about cold cases she'd solved with her kooky, joyful partners who were absolutely characters in real life in addition to on the page. But now she didn't know who would want to read the daily horror she dealt with. She didn't want to write it, because writing makes it real and real was too real for her escapism. Hell, she wished she hadn't lived it.

As Temperance turned around to go back to her desk, the thought crossed her mind that she wished she weren't living it, present tense. She wanted to go back to dig sites and ancient civilizations, debating Egyptian versus Sumerian. She wanted to go back to South America and look at the Aztec, the Maya, the Inca, and the museums that held their remains in which she was well cited. Staring into space, Bones could see herself back at her favorite Peruvian outdoor market buying a necklace for herself and debating whether Angela would want the red or the orange scarf.

The colors in her own imagination mesmerized her. She could smell roasting vegetables and fresh bread, feel woolen textiles, and hear the shouts of vendors around her arguing, bargaining, and finally agreeing on a price.

Brennan grabbed for a pen.


	3. Chemistry

Chemistry.

Zach doesn't understand the concept of romantic chemistry. In fact, it's a ridiculous term, he thinks to himself, for people who don't understand science. Although... chemistry is loud, messy, and explosive, which is not a bad description of some of his previous romantic attempts. There's also the quiet awkwardness of not understanding as someone who has a much more solid background in the matter stares at you, expecting you to know how to figure out the answer. With this too, he is familiar.

So Zach stares intot he corner and thinks he gets it a little more now. How it takes years of practice until it becomes second nature – how there's a whole new vocabulary, a whole new language to learn to speak and to read. How "organic" is a ridiculous word for something that comes so unnaturally to him. Pushing hair out of his eyes and refocusing on the patiently waiting computer screen, Zack straightens his posture and decides to work harder. There's an equation there that he can derive…or a theory, at least. Something testable in a lab.


	4. Law

Law.

Temperance Brennan is in great demand as an expert witness. Everyone wants her in the seat. Her book means that the jury has likely heard her name at least on TV if they haven't already seen her face on the back cover of her latest novel. To that end, she's an impressive asset to whichever side has enlisted her help.

Temperance Brennan, however, has grown to dread the subpoenas. Whereas she once thrived amidst the courtroom mahogany, drunk on truth and the excitement of civic duty, her role as witness has changed. Brennan knows enough to confirm, deny, nuance, and complicate the evidence in front of her. She is not intimidated by an audience as she does what she knows she does best. In all honesty, she sometimes indulges her desire to put on a show. Exhibit A replays in her memory as she crawls into bed and allows her pajama-clad self to smile at the practical application of years of dedication.

The problem with Temperance Brennan is that now she has seen too much. An expert witness doesn't see the crime committed, she looks at evidence after the fact. But Brennan has seen many crimes now. They happen in front of her face. Her friends have dropped to the ground in the safety of her own lab and she has witnessed it. The years grow longer, and she becomes an unwilling expert in witnessing.


	5. Botany

Botany.

Bones for a long time disliked Victorian literature but was coming around to it. Angela scoffed. It was in the early phases of their friendship when they were still learning each other's idiosyncrasies that quickly became second nature.

The weather was a little too cold for Bones to be reading outside, but she persevered, her breath making little clouds that the wind blew onwards. Angela sat shivering next to her. She vigorously rubbed her arms, trying to heat her skin under her numerous layers. Eventually, she took the long end of Brennan's scarf and draped it across her own shoulders. At this, Brennan looked up and fixed a questioning gaze on her chilled friend. Angela put on an anticipatory expression.

"Why?" she asked with exaggerated annoyance.

"I don't understand the question," Bones replied.

"Why the hell are we doing this outside when we could be perfectly warm and perfectly happy doing the same thing indoors. What are you reading, anyway?"

"It's a book on Victorian floriography, and I like the sunshine."

"What?"

"What?"

"Something to do with flowers?"

"Oh Angela, it's an entire language."

"That you intend to learn overnight."

"It's not that complicated."

Angela sighed.

"Tell me more," she said, adjusting her hat. "Take my mind off the cold."

"Well anything you want to say, you can apparently say in flowers. Which granted is a limited vocabulary but not many literary characters seem to mind," Brennan answered.

"I have a question."

"Yes."

"The guy from last week dumped me. How do you say 'fuck you' in flowers?"

Brennan flipped to the glossary and started running her finger down the terms.

"It's not in here," she deadpanned. "We'll have to extrapolate."

Which is how that night, Angela found herself in Bones's kitchen tying together a bunch of stems with an obnoxiously bright ribbon.


End file.
